Lydia (Noles '05,'08) Ezzell | Nursing

Nursing is a ministry to Lydia Ezzell, who splits her time between working as a registered nurse at Hendrick Medical Center and a family nurse practitioner at Dyess Air Force Base.

“It doesn’t matter if you are giving medications or simply rubbing a patient’s feet with lotion to make them feel better. What we do has an impact for the people we come in contact with,” she says. “That makes it easy to get up in the morning and say ‘Yeah! I get to go to work today.’”

I enjoyed ACU, especially Chapel. I became more solidified in my faith as I was growing into adulthood. The influences in my life during that time helped me continue to make the faith my parents passed down to me, my own. I knew also that I wanted to be a part of something bigger than me and for my life to make a difference.

Lydia graduated from ACU with her bachelor’s degree in nursing in 2005 and immediately began work in the intensive care unit at Hendrick Medical Center. After finishing her Family Nurse Practitioner degree in 2008, she worked in the emergency room at Colorado City for a year and a half. She then returned to Hendrick’s ICU and added her part-time FNP job at Dyess.

Ministry of presence

As a nurse, she administers therapies prescribed by a physician. As a nurse practitioner, she performs physical examinations; diagnoses and treats common acute illnesses and injuries; provides immunizations; manages high blood pressure, diabetes, depression and other chronic health problems; orders and interprets diagnostic tests such as X-Rays and EKGs, as well as laboratory tests; prescribes medications and therapies; performs procedures; and educates and counsels patients and their families regarding healthy lifestyles and health care options.

It is unusual for someone to be working in both roles at the same time, Lydia says. "I happen to do so because I enjoy both, and I only work part time in each job.

"I returned to the ICU because I love bedside nursing and one-on-one contact with the patient,” she says. “I also missed the nurses I worked with before. They are some of the best, and really when you work with them you know that if anything bad is going to happen, you can all handle it together.”

A job that matters

Days in the ICU are fast-paced, Lydia says, but the time spent there is worth every minute. “The part that makes my job worth going back to is when a family member or patient hugs me and says, ‘Thank you.’ I know that what I did then, and continue to do, mattered to them,” she says.